As the question of transgender women participating in women’s sports continues to be debated, the question has now made its way to the White House.
Last week, Fox Business correspondent Hillary Vaughn asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre whether or not the president agrees with GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley that the debate is the “women’s issue of our time.”
Answering on behalf of Joe Biden, Jean-Pierre simply called it a “complicated issue.”
“So, we’ve talked about this many times. This is the Title [IX], specifically. Look, and again, we’ve talked about this multiple times. It’s a complicated issue, and there are a wide range of views on this. The Department of Education proposed a rule, as you know, that gives schools the flexibility to establish their own athletics policies, and so while establishing guardrails, right, to prevent discrimination against transgender kids,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is something that is incredibly important, that the president wants to make sure that we also do that as well. So, I’m just not going to get ahead of that.”
Vaughn then reminded Jean-Pierre of Biden’s granddaughters, questioning if the president thought it would be fair for them to compete against a transgender athlete. But Jean-Pierre did not take the bait.
“I just answered the question. It is a complicated issue. It is truly a complicated issue with a wide range of views, a wide range of views. There is no yes or no answer to this. It is complicated. There’s a rule that the Department of Education has put forward, and we’re going to let that process move forward,” Jean-Pierre said. “Again, we want to make sure that while we establish guardrails with this rule that we also prevent discrimination as well against transgender kids. But again, a complicated issue with a wide range of views, and we respect that.”
Biden has made it clear in the past that he would not support a ban on transgender female athletes.
